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The
scenery, which has been good, really comes into its own as
we depart Ashton, and climb up into the Targhee National Forest.
Island Park - which bills itself as having the longest Main
Street in America, but only has a few hundred residents - is
just ahead. A short distance past that we climb up over
the Continental Divide, and into Montana! West Yellowstone
is only 10 miles (16 km) away now.
There will be a short stop at our
Cafe in West Yellowstone, which is the closest building to
Yellowstone National Park. We'll grab your sack lunches,
and you can also take a cup of coffee for the road. The
fun really starts as we travel a couple of hundred yards from
the Cafe into the park!
Apart from the incredible natural
beauty and the wildlife, Yellowstone is most famous for its
thermal features - the geysers, hot springs, mud pots and
fumaroles. This is what the tour will focus on mainly, and
yes, you will watch the world's most famous gusher, Old
Faithful, erupting! We will travel east into Yellowstone,
and see how the great fire of 1988 decimated the park, just
after we cross into the state of Wyoming. The Madison River is
to the north, and there is often wildlife to be seen here,
particularly bison and elk. At Madison Junction we'll turn
right or south, and the first geyser area at which we will stop
is the Lower Geyser Basin. You can walk through the basin,
taking in the almost other worldly sights, including several
geysers, mud pots, hot springs and even a fumarole (we'll
explain!).
Next up is the Midway Geyser
Basin, home to one of the biggest hot springs in the world, as
well as a defunct geyser. You will see that the colors
here are spectacular, as are the steam and mist which often
surround the basin.
Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser
Basin are just down the road, and you'll have a chance to watch
the world's most famous geyser erupt. There is a lot more
to the Upper Basin than just Old Faithful though, and with any
luck we'll be able to see other geysers erupting as well.
The Old Faithful Inn is a wonderful old wooden building, and is
also well worth a visit.
We're going to retrace our steps
a little now as we head towards the Grand Canyon of the
Yellowstone, an amazing canyon that has been carved through the
yellow tinged rock, by the Yellowstone River. The next
major stop is Norris Geyser Basin. This is made up of two
separate basins, the Back Basin and Porcelain Basin. Time
permitting we will stroll around parts of both.
Those are the main destinations
on this Yellowstone tour, but there will be many other stops as
well. There are various other areas with thermal features,
as well as wildlife, and places of beauty and interest along the
way. Basically we will stop whenever there is something to
see or to be photographed, and those occur in abundance!
On the way out of the park we
will pause at our Cafe once again, to pick up pizzas for the
road. The tour finishes in the downtown Salt Lake
area, and can be seen in almost hour by hour detail
here,
where it can also be ordered.
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